Mommy Tags.com owner, Kirsten Reed, triumphs over adversity and launches a customized jewelry business that celebrates the greatest role of her life, and the lives of many others -- that of Mom.
Silverdale, WA (PRWEB) October 19, 2005 -- Mommytags.com owner, Kirsten Reed, has endured a lot in the past decade -- including the gunpoint kidnapping of her mentally delayed daughter and a bout with Bell’s Palsy. Now 44, Reed is taking back control and celebrating the one thing that is most important to her -- motherhood. Reed’s “Mommy Tags” are recycled silver tags engraved with a child’s name and birth date. Much like a wedding band, they symbolize the awesome and eternal connection a mother has with her child.
In July of 2000, Kirsten Reed was happily married, had two beautiful children and enjoyed her job as a paralegal at a prominent Seattle law firm. Then, the unthinkable happened. Her mentally delayed sixteen-year-old daughter was kidnapped at gunpoint. Although her daughter managed to fight off her attacker, she sustained a nasty head injury in the process.
As Reed sought the medical and psychological treatment needed to help her daughter begin to recover from this trauma, she was blindsided by a second blow. According to her children, their biological father had been forcing them to perform sexual acts in front of him for years.
For months, Reed lodged complaints and called for an investigation if not an arrest. To her utter amazement, charges were not brought against the alleged abuser, but rather against the eldest of his alleged victims. After a prolonged effort by the prosecution to force Reed and her son to testify against her daughter, Reed took the radical step of going into hiding with her son. When the case was dismissed for lack of evidence and the statute of limitations had run out, Reed and her son reunited with her daughter.
Around that time, Reed began noticing some disturbing drooping and numbness in her face. It turned out that she had a severe case of Bell’s Palsy. “It was as if my face was displaying for the world to see on the outside just how broken I felt on the inside,” Reed explains of the illness, going on to add, “But I knew that if my children could silently endure a terrible secret for years, if my daughter could crawl home after being attacked, if we could beat the so-called justice system, then I could find the strength to fight this disorder.” And fight it she did. That year, Reed made a full recovery and ran the 2003 New York City Marathon in celebration.
That was the beginning of happier times for Reed and her children. The same year, Reed’s sister-in-law gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. In honor of the occasion, Reed made a simple silver necklace upon which hung a silver tag engraved with the new child’s name and birth date. It was the first of what would become Mommy Tags and a new career. “I figured if the Palsy could manifest all the pain and anguish in my face, I could create a physical manifestation of something even stronger—the bond between a mother and child.”
Kirsten Reed’s recycled silver commemorative tags, which can be worn as a bracelet or necklace, are available online at www.mommytags.com and with select retailers. They have been popular with high profile celebrity moms like Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts and Courteney Cox Arquette, as well as the mom next door. In addition to her “Mommy Tags,” Reed also offers “Daddy Tags” and “Tot Tags.” To schedule an interview with Kirsten Reed, learn more about “Mommy Tags” or inquire about wholesaling opportunities, please call 360.271.1790.
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